China's Communists say call us comrades

CHINA'S president, Xi Jinping, has a dream: that his country will experience a 'great rejuvenation', that its smoggy skies will clear, and that Communist Party members will call each other 'comrade' once more. A recent directive said a revival of the form of address would promote 'equality and democracy' among the party's 88m members. This lofty ambition has drawn laughter and scorn online. In fact the word tongzhi, literally meaning 'same aspirations', is still in common use. These days, however, it is a synonym for gay.Mr Xi has already tried (and failed) to reclaim comrade for the party. Even when officials discarded many obsolete rules in 2014, they said comrade should still be used instead of popular terms like 'boss' or 'brother'. Comrade reflects a 'virtuous tradition', according to Study Times, a party journal. Mr Xi appears blind to the word's more recently acquired sense. Gay people in Hong Kong claimed comrade for themselves in the 1980s (the first character in tongzhi is the same as the one used in tongxing lian, or...Continue reading
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